This invention relates to packaging units for articles of furniture and the like and more specifically to a means for spatially positioning said article of furniture within a shipping container for storage and/or shipment thereof. It is well known in the furniture industry, respecting the storage and/or shipment of articles of furniture, that the articles are packaged in outer containers and stacked for storage and/or shipping with the article of furniture itself serving as the load carrying structure for the stack and the outer container with its inner packings serving as a protective coating for said articles' finished surfaces. In packaging furniture, particularly for shipment, the packaged unit must comply with certain uniform freight requirements furnished by freight carriers to insure that the article of furniture is reasonably protected against in transit damage and other casualty. Furniture packaging specifications have been standardized, to a large degree, by railroad and motor freight carriers, whereby a minimum clearance between finished and upholstered surfaces of said articles of furniture and the interior surfaces of the shipping container must be maintained in order to reduce the occurrence of damage thereto. In addition, finished surfaces of furniture must be protected from contact with interior spacing and packaging forms by a non-abrasive material. Heretofore compliance with these requirements have required the use of a non-abrasive material, such as kraft paper having layers of tissue paper laminated to one side thereof, and spacing forms, such as the corner pad illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,670,122, to accomplish the required purpose. Different types of spacing forms, pads and/or combinations thereof have been used in order to comply with said freight carrier's packaging specifications.
The aforesaid known devices and methods do function as intended; however, furniture manufacturers and dealers having a large variety of shapes and forms of furniture articles find it necessary to carry an extremely large inventory of different shapes and sizes of shipping containers, spacing forms, pads and other related materials to accommodate the different shapes and sizes of articles of furniture. For example, different size shipping containers would be required to accommodate a small bedside table, a larger end table, and a still larger writing table or the like. Such result, of course, increases the shipping and storage expense associated with goods of this type.